Baroque palace on the corner of the Main Market Square, seat of the Historical Museum of the City of Kraków, with a figure of St Christopher and 17th-century stuccoes.
The "Pod Krzysztofory" Palace is a historic townhouse on the corner of Rynek Główny 35 and Szczepańska 2 in Kraków. It is the seat of the Historical Museum of the City of Kraków. It took its name from the stone figure of St Christopher, which from around 1380 hung on the façade of the corner townhouse. The building is entered in the heritage register, and the register gives the dating as 1640.
The core of the building is a tower from the 14th century. Around 1644 Marshal Adam Kazanowski commissioned the architect Wawrzyniec Senes to rebuild it as a palace on an L-shaped plan, with an arcaded gallery and a cloister. In the second half of the 17th century the Italian architect Giacomo Solari and the sculptor Baltazar Fontana added stuccoes, including mythological scenes. In the 18th century the façade was faced with stone and decorated with a Baroque portal.
Stuccoes showing, among others, the fall of Phaethon have survived to this day. In selected rooms on the first and third floors polychrome decoration is visible. In the cellars is the Krzysztofory Gallery.
In 1961-1980 the experimental Cricot 2 theatre operated in the palace. The annual exhibition of Kraków nativity scenes (szopki) is also presented in Krzysztofory. The townhouse lies right next to the Cloth Hall (Sukiennice) and on the edge of the Square, so it is easy to combine with a walk across the Square.
Nearby stand the Cloth Hall (Sukiennice), about 100 m away, and St Mary's Basilica, about 200 m from here. It is close to the Main Market Square, of which it is a part, and to the Planty Park.
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